How Can You Stop Carpet Moths Returning After Treatment?

Twice a Year: Move the Heavy Furniture

This is the whole preventive programme in one line. Move the wardrobes, the beds, the sofa and the chest of drawers once or twice a year, and vacuum properly underneath and behind them.

Larvae need to be left alone to feed. A corner of a room that has not been touched since the carpet was fitted is where the damage happens, and interrupting that is more effective than anything you can buy.

Monthly: The Room Edges

Use the crevice tool along the skirting and the gripper line, all the way round each room, and under the edge of any rug laid over a carpet. That strip is where the cases, the frass and the eggs collect, and a wide vacuum head passes straight over it.

Empty the cylinder into a sealed bag and put it in the outside bin rather than leaving it indoors or carrying it between rooms.

Storage: Wash Before You Put It Away

Always. Body oils, perspiration and food residue make wool considerably more attractive, which is why damage in stored knitwear is usually at the cuffs, collar and underarms rather than randomly.

Store in sealed containers rather than cardboard boxes or open shelves. Cedar and lavender are pleasant rather than protective and will not stop an established population — do not rely on them.

Once a Year: Survey With Traps

Put a pheromone trap in each room with a wool or wool-mix carpet for a fortnight, and see which ones catch. It is a survey rather than a control, and it is the cheapest way to find out where a population is before it shows as damage.

The rooms nobody uses are the ones to watch: a spare bedroom, a box room, a landing, a formal dining room. Busy rooms rarely develop a problem.

Know What You Are Buying

Wool, silk, fur and feather are food; synthetics are not. If you replace a carpet, replace old felt or hair underlay with it, because that is frequently where the population actually lives.

And treat before you fit rather than after. Treatment is £180 for the first room and £60 for each additional one, and a new wool carpet laid into a live population is an expensive way to feed them.